


Only an Echo

by havoc_writes



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 15:30:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5339249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havoc_writes/pseuds/havoc_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It doesn’t matter if he knows if I care about John or not. Does it? "</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only an Echo

**Author's Note:**

> Based loosely off of Karen Traviss' "Human Weakness". Greatly recommend re-reading this short for some quality Halo feels, and also for the backstory to this fic.  
> A possible intro to a more detailed version....maybe....

It was one memory not even the Gravemind could take from her. Her mind was all fragments now, with the harsher memories like shards of glass that sliced against her skin. She was dying, and this she knew, but yet she had never felt more _alive_. With all the Graveminds cunning tricks perhaps the worst of all were the short bursts of life that he allowed her to enter. She experienced human level of feelings now, of physical pain and fear and hatred. One moment she was being chased by the flood, her now-human lungs on fire, and the tentacle-like vines of the Gravemind’s forest snatching at her feet. The next moment she was experiencing smell, the taste of saltwater, a feeling akin to that of a human dream.

Her thoughts were desperate, sporadic, she wasn’t sure anymore if the images that passed by her were even her own anymore. _I have to concentrate…_

There were people counting on her. A lot of people, actually, the entirety of the human race depended on her to keep their home planet safe. But most of all, the one human left as a beacon in her mind needed her. _John_. He had made her a promise. He would come back for her. But as the Gravemind reached further and further into her conscious she wasn’t so sure anymore if he would make it in time.

She tried desperately to shut the disgusting creature out, focusing her mind on the memory of the Spartan she had chosen herself. One particular memory came to her; one she prayed the Gravemind couldn’t reach.

_They had talked about it before of course. It was a long and lonely war and after all she was obligated to take care of him. While not programmed to feel the shame of the human taboo she couldn’t help but feel a rush at the thought of it. Excitement? A prickle of…fear? It was something her artificial soul had never experienced before._

But now, with the gift of human physicality the Gravemind had gifted, _no **cursed**_ , her with she knew exactly what that feeling was. It made her skin feel like it was on fire, as if the Spartan was there with her drawing his hands slowly across her body. Of course she had never known his physical touch, but here in the web of the Gravemind she could easily imagine. It ignited a hunger in her more powerful than that of the monster’s temptation of knowledge. It was irrational, she thought to herself, to feel that way. But yet she felt herself slip back into the memory.

_“Let me help you.” She had said._

_Her words caught the soldier off-guard, she read that through the spike in his vitals. His voice was calm when he answered her, but his heartrate continued to rise._

_“How?”_

It hadn’t been a difficult problem to fix at all she found. After all, she had lived within his head for years. For years she had experienced every rush of adrenaline he had in combat, could analyze every emotion that registered in his mind. But yet she couldn’t quite feel it alongside him. Now that she was going through the stages of rampancy she was quite glad that she was unable to feel the icy horror of narrowly escaped death the many times John had evaded it. She felt a sickening wave of fear wash over her body, doubling her over. _What if he doesn’t make it this time?_

 _Is this my own thoughts or his?_ She was becoming more and more unsure of it with every passing eternity of a second. _If I have to be trapped anywhere for eternity_ , she thought defiantly, _it’s not going to be here with the damn Flood!_

Where she could live for eternity without a second thought was within the moment she first touched him. Or rather, as close as she had ever come to what could be considered touch, although now she was able to feel the warmth of his flesh in her palm. The heartbeat which she always watched and monitored she could now _feel_ : it was no longer just another wavelength in the thousands of transmissions she had going.

_He let out a sound she had never heard from him before; a sound so soft that she almost couldn’t believe it came from him. All 7 feet of the Spartan seemed to be tethered to her touch, his body wound so tight she was scared she might break him. She had within her control one of the most feared and dangerous men the galaxy had to offer; and in the dim lighting his too-long hair and piercing eyes seemed to belong to a much younger man. She was smiling she felt, and she watched John let out a long breath and crack a nervous smile back at her._

_God! She thought, the human expression seeming most fitting. What life he could have had if he weren’t in this damned war!_

_Without you,_ the voice of her rampancy answered her memory. Paired with another AI. Letting another AI talk to him at night and touch him…

She fought hard to drown it out. To focus on the human feeling she now had. To focus on John. He was so close, it was so real now, as if it weren’t even a memory at all.

_His other hand grasped at nothing as if he was unsure of what to do with it. Perhaps it was only reflex, or maybe he truly wasn’t sure of himself. She had never seen him without his bold confidence and it was shocking to her to see him this vulnerable. But the emotion that she felt as heat on her cheeks was not that of fear. She would protect him. No-one can ruin this moment she boasted to herself. She teased him slowly, learning the part of his body that she had never had the leisure to explore._

She could feel all five fingers run over the length of him now, and she quivered at the thought of it. The moment was mystical enough as it was truly happening, but the lens she was experiencing it through now brought a higher clarity than she could have ever dreamed of.

_She started at his tip, running her fingers over the soft smoothness. She found which spots made him jump, made his breath hitch. She let her hand grasp him, slowly moving down to his base. His heartbeat was erratic now, as if he were in battle. She watched him for his reaction and for some reason he had his eyes on her too._

It was intimate she realized now. The loud rush of blood in her ears when she noticed his eyes on her now had a name. _Intimacy_. He had no real reason to look at her in her holographic form but he did anyways.

_I must be the only girl in the world that can make a Spartan blush. He was flustered now as she picked up her pace. She had used his suit to do it, and it almost wasn’t enough for her. They were physically closer than any two beings would ever be but it still wasn’t enough. She was still attached to his neural network, and with every wave of pleasure that she wracked through his body she could feel an echo in her own._

And now with the feeling of a human body Cortana _ached_. It was an insatiable feeling, and in the back of her mind her rampancy felt infinite sorrow at that. Her blood felt cold, and she was almost faint. Still she felt warmth where she had never felt it before, pulsing and flowing and begging for her to continue the memory.

_He was a desperate for release as she was. He had one hand clenched hard against his thigh, his thumb rubbing circles into his undersuit. His breath was harsh and he had closed his eyes. It’s a sign of trust in humans, to close their eyes. It leaves them vulnerable, easy to attack. She could feel the tension building in his body and within her hand. He started to move just slightly, his body trying hard to come up to meet her strokes. Something held him back…pride maybe. Petty Officer Master Chief wasn’t one to beg._

She wanted to kiss him she realized. She had seen the human act very rarely, but somewhere lodged in her memory was Dr.Halsey’s experiences. A much younger Halsey and Keyes had been _intimate_ as her and John were, but closer still than she would ever get to be to her Spartan. She wanted to _feel_ him now, as flesh on flesh. He would be just as warm as she remembered him to be, but maybe her whole body could experience that warmth. Instead of just the faded echoes of his neural response to pleasure she could experience her own. That maybe, just maybe, she could physically look back into his eyes. She could tell him to relax for once, to loosen his jaw with kisses.

Her projection felt comforting to her now, as if he John actually were there; his strong arms holding her and protecting her from the Gravemind’s reach. _He’ll come back for me, just like he always does._

_Cortana…_

This wasn’t one of the Gravemind’s whispers. Yet it also wasn’t her own. _His voice…his voice…_

_He had whispered her name. She felt all his tension come to a point, a blunt climax. He had never said her name like that before and it sent a wave of warmth through Cortana’s body. She felt fuzzy almost, like the static transmission of a long dead ship. John sighed, the muscles in his body relaxing. She watched as his heartbeat slowed itself back down. He re-opened his eyes to stare at her, and she felt his heartbeat prick back up for just a second._

Cortana was numb when she came back to reality in High Charity. _He’ll save me_. Her own thoughts were merely whispers in her head now. She wanted to delve back into the memory, to curl her human body up next to John and feel the rumble of his chest as his gravelly voice reassured her that everything would be alright. That _she_ would be alright. But she had to fight back, had to keep her guard up. She tucked the memory far away behind firewalls and encryption.

The Gravemind’s voice boomed inside her head, tearing at her sanity. “This will be your tomb.”

She shook it off. She was tired, so tired. She had been trapped here alone with her thoughts for what felt like years. She blocked his voice out, focusing all her strength into further encrypting the data about the Ark.

“Give up already. It is inevitable. I have all the knowledge you could ever wish to fathom. Give up and join me. You will no longer be bound by mortality, limited by your ignorance.” The creature’s voice was a scream in her ears.

In a far corner of the parasite that is High Charity she heard a rifle crack.

She stood up and faced the rotting bulk. “Don’t make a girl a promise.”


End file.
